Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation
Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation:
Teaching and Learning through Literary
Responses to Conflict
Edited by
Leo W. Riegert, Jr., Jill Scott and Jack Shuler
Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation:
Teaching and Learning through Literary Responses to Conflict,
Edited by Leo W. Riegert, Jr., Jill Scott and Jack Shuler
This book first published 2013
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2013 by Leo W. Riegert, Jr., Jill Scott, Jack Shuler and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-5048-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5048-3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword ................................................................................................... vii
Preface ......................................................................................................... x
Part I: Theory
Chapter One ................................................................................................. 2
Introduction: The Language of Reconciliation; Evolving Terminology
and the Ethics of Teaching
Jill Scott
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 21
Never Again: Preventing Genocide and Promoting Reconciliation
with Interventionist Pedagogy
Joy Arbor
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 40
Crossing the Line: Writing and Reading Holocaust Testimonies
Sarah Gendron
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 61
Apologizing for Genocide: The Subtleties, Significance, and Complexity
of Contrition in Rwanda’s Reconciliation
Emil B. Towner
Part II: Reading
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 80
Discursive Strategies in Australian Reconciliation and Alex Miller’s
Landscape of Farewell
Sheila Collingwood-Whittick
Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 103
Teaching the Troubles: Responses to Literary Violence in Irish Poetry
Anne Goarzin
vi
Table of Contents
Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 122
Is Not the Truth the Truth? Reconciling Truths in Gillian Slovo’s Every
Secret Thing and the Practice of Reconciliation in South Africa
Modhumita Roy
Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 143
Literary Peace Research and Spectacular Reconciliation from Homer
to Heinrich von Kleist
Jean Wilson
Part III: Practice
Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 164
Gathering Voices: Teaching Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation
in Chilean Literature
Elena M. De Costa
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 185
From Thinking to Practicing Reconciliation: Telling the Stories
of Rwanda
Catherine T. Nerney
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 210
Dynamic Memories of Slavery: Towards a Pedagogy of Reconciliation
Jack Shuler
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 224
Dialogue in the Shadow of Atrocity: Writing, Reading, and Teaching
the Holocaust
Leo W. Riegert Jr.
Appendices .............................................................................................. 246
Contributors ............................................................................................. 260
FOREWORD
SUSAN M. GLISSON
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
WILLIAM WINTER INSTITUTE FOR RACIAL RECONCILIATION
It is a hot Mississippi summer day. Twenty-eight students, black and
white, from across the state are gathered on the University of Mississippi
campus for the Summer Youth Institute (SYI).
Known by many as “Ole Miss,” a moniker that harkens to its
establishment as the state’s flagship university, an institution founded to
teach the ideology of slavery to its future leaders, the University of
Mississippi is a site of conflict and of efforts to reconcile beyond its
painful history. SYI is designed to make use of that historical context,
convening students to address issues of racism and structural inequities in
order to remediate them.
Many of the students at SYI come from segregated public high
schools. The divisions are created now by residential segregation and
custom rather than by law. But they are segregated just the same.
The purpose of the camp is to create a safe space for learning about
historic divisions in the state as well as the ways in which ordinary people
have resisted those separations and worked to build bridges for a better
Mississippi. Through a ropes course and a scavenger hunt, the students
forge bonds and create a sense of team unity. Next, the students are
assigned into seven groups of four students each to research and creatively
present the life of an overlooked civil-rights figure from Mississippi. For
the first time, these students begin to see Mississippi not simply as a place
of pain and strife based on race but as a place of hope and courage and
accomplishment.
Using stories from a variety of cultures, as well as poems and songs,
we continue through SYI to create a circle of trust in which the students
get to know each other more deeply. With that foundation of new
relationships, as well as some initial understanding of the history of the
state, we introduce them to an exercise called the “Race for Life.”i
The game is deceptively simple: the students all begin on the same
“starting line” and are asked to take steps forward or backward, depending
viii
Foreword
on their answers to certain questions: “How many books are in your
home?” “Have you ever been followed by security in a store?” “Has
anyone in your family received public assistance?” “Have you ever been
discouraged from taking a class or applying for a job because of your
gender or race?”
As the exercise progresses, the students who generally move forward
the fastest are white and male. Just behind them are white females. The
students who stay behind and move backwards are those identified as
ethnic, with the darker-skinned African American males the farthest back.
After the exercise, counselors and students gather in a circle to process
what they observed. Many feel angry at the unfairness of their
circumstances. Others feel guilty that they have benefited from privilege
they did not earn. A lot of them feel shame, a sense that their classmates
might now think less of them.
Over time, the students begin to see the larger structures that have been
put in place to reinforce such inequities. They become resolved to
challenge that system; a prime motivator to their determination is the fact
that they have become friends and want all of society’s opportunities to be
available to all of them.
These students are each now embarked upon a local community project
that they designed to address these issues in their hometowns; they have
asked that we design a course that will allow them to delve deeper into the
study of conflict and conflict transformation, including learning of other
global contexts and struggles.
It is easy, of course, to be reminded of another generation of young
people who came to Mississippi to work with local leaders to challenge
Jim Crow. And there are footprints of those earlier leaders in the lives and
passion of these students today. But the world they face now is infinitely
more complicated, with information being circulated at the speed of sound
through new technology. In the midst of chaotic and often conflicting
messages about how to live a meaningful life, it is challenging for our
students to know how to move forward in ways that are respectful and
effective. And yet they possess a deep desire to make their worlds a better
place.
This anecdote speaks to the motives behind the essays gathered here.
They are part of a larger vision to provide college-aged learners and their
instructors with the tools to do the work of “thinking and practicing
reconciliation.” It is this hunger of our students to create a brighter future
for all of us, using all possible tools for critical thinking and learning,
which this work attempts to address. It is our obligation as educators and
our hope for a just and reconciled world to support their journey.
Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation
ix
Notes
i
A fuller description of this activity, including a lengthy list of questions, may be
found at the following website: “Horatio Alger Exercise” (campusministry.com, 1
Nov. 2007, Web, Accessed 18 Feb. 2013). The site notes that this is an adaptation
by Ellen Bettmann of an activity developed by Martin Cano, Valerie Tulier, and
Ruch Kacz of “A World of Difference.”
PREFACE
LEO W. RIEGERT JR., JILL SCOTT
AND JACK SHULER
The two central claims of Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation are
that literary representations of conflict offer important insights into
processes of resolution and practices of reconciliation, and that it is crucial
to bring these debates into the post-secondary classroom. As literarystudies researchers who care passionately about the pursuit of better
outcomes to conflict, the authors of this anthology believe that teaching
these topics in deliberate and engaged ways is the best approach to
maximize the impact of our work. To that end, the essays collected here
aim to help teachers think deeply about the ways in which we can
productively integrate literature on/as reconciliation into our curricula.
Until recently, scholarship on teaching and learning in higher education
has not been widely accepted as equal to research in other fields. This
volume seeks to establish that serious analysis of pedagogical practices is
not only a worthy and legitimate academic pursuit, but also that it is
crucial to our professional development as researcher-educators.
In the past few decades, reconciliation has become a political, social,
and sometimes personal project. In places as diverse as South Africa,
Northern Ireland, Argentina, Canada and Mississippi, communities and
governments have worked together to address past human-rights injustices
through hearings, dialogues, and various other forums. In some cases, but
not all, participants have been given legal amnesty for testifying about
their participation in these abuses. These models of Restorative and
Transitional Justice present an alternative to the retributive “eye for an
eye” model and are viewed by many as a more productive means of
addressing large-scale wrongdoings of the past. But do they really work?
The jury is still out on the effectiveness of quasi-judicial processes in
many of the places where reconciliation efforts have been made. Since the
early 1990s, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War,
the dismantling of South African apartheid, and the aftermath of violent
ethnic conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Northern Ireland, scholars across
Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation
xi
the globe have taken up this question. Indeed, researchers across the
humanities and social sciences have turned their attention to the
development of peace processes, power sharing, transitional and
restorative justice, and quasi-judicial processes such as truth commissions.
The essays collected here address reconciliation and other forms of
conflict resolution as they are portrayed in literary texts from many of
these regions.
Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation was inspired by a panel
discussion at the 2009 meeting of the Northeast Modern Language
Association in Boston. The size and interest of the audience was our first
indication that there is a great deal of interest in the role of reconciliation
in creative literature. The discussions among panelists and members of the
audience centered largely on theoretical frameworks of forgiveness and
reconciliation in Western humanist traditions. While such debates provide
much-needed clarification of models and intellectual traditions, this
volume seeks to enrich the conversation through a greater focus on
pedagogical practices as they unfold in college classrooms. In recent years
writers from a wide variety of disciplines have explored this trope using
the tools of literary analysis. Others have addressed the relationship
between literature and human-rights discourse in general. Still other critics
are concerned with identifying specific pedagogies of reconciliation and
instructing students in post-conflict areas to engage in conciliatory
practices.
The scholarly output has become so vast that several sub-disciplines
have now emerged, including Peace Studies, Conflict Studies, Reconciliation
Studies, and Trauma Studies. In the post-secondary landscape, national
security has also become a powerful buzzword, and Security Studies are
taking center stage at our institutions. The discipline of Literary Studies
has been relatively late in responding to post-conflict frameworks,
however, and there has been even less substantive scholarship that
addresses the teaching and learning of reconciliation and resolution at the
post-secondary level.
Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation seeks to remedy both of these
gaps in scholarship. The essays in this volume take seriously both the
academic study of literature dealing with the aftermath of gross humanrights violations and the teaching of this literature. The current generation
of college-aged students is deeply affected by the proximity of violence in
our global world. This collection recognizes educators’ responsibility to
enable future generations to analyze conflict—whether local or global—
and participate in constructive discourses of resolution. We bring together
instructor-critics from a variety of disciplines, each of whom discusses a
xii
Preface
particular aspect of reconciliation, including US slavery, the Holocaust,
apartheid South Africa, post-genocide Rwanda, and ancient Greece. The
essays investigate not just how literature approaches the thorny issue of
reconciliation but also how the often-contradictory demands of this
literature confront the unambiguous demand for ethical action provoked
by ultimate horrors. In some cases, literary texts themselves demonstrate
the ambiguities of resolution or point to ways forward for the work of
reconciliation. In other cases, it is the pedagogical approach the instructor
brings to the text which combines the theory and practice of reconciliation.
Because literary texts are inherently creative, they serve as platforms to
explore responses to conflict. When students respond critically and
creatively to these texts, they also learn to engage critically and creatively
with conflict, whether close at hand or at a distance. At a time when largescale conflict would seem to be on the rise—witness the violent uprisings
during and in the wake of the Arab Spring or the protests in response to
the economic collapse of Greece—it is all the more important to help
students develop a critical vocabulary and theoretical framework to be able
to understand and cope with conflict. While security and defense will
continue to be indispensable fields of study in our current age of conflict,
it is also important to offer students alternative lenses, including
discourses of reconciliation and conflict resolution. The fictional worlds
found in literary texts offer students the opportunity to articulate their
private anxieties around conflict and to explore alternative responses, be
they social, political, military, or otherwise. Interpreting texts provides
students with the analytical skills to address complex problems.
Furthermore, holding multiple—and even contradictory—interpretations
simultaneously enables us to view conflict from multiple positions, a skill
required for successful conflict mediation.
The contributors to this volume analyze texts written in response to
prolonged violence and historical oppression on five continents. They
consider a wide variety of genres, including memoir, historical fiction,
literary non-fiction, classical epic, novel, poetry, and journalism. Recent
theoretical and literary approaches to the aftermaths of large-scale atrocity
typically insist on the impossibility of any ultimate “truth and
reconciliation.” While many of our contributors acknowledge the value of
open-endedness, their larger goal is to bring students to an open-ended
practice, not just to “understand” reconciliation intellectually as ongoing,
but also to engage in it as such. By showing how literature can play an
“active” role in political and social reconciliation, this book also
participates in current debates about the meaning and role of the
humanities in higher education.
Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation
xiii
The volume divides literary representations of reconciliation into three
categories of teaching and learning: theory, reading, and practice. Our
larger purpose is to bring these elements into conversation, to connect
readers’ interpretations of the text, the teacher’s engagement with students,
and students’ engagement with post-conflict reconciliation. Each section
and chapter is thus situated within an arc linking the thinking and
practicing of reconciliation, and there is often significant overlap between
categories.
The “Theory” section of this volume begins with Jill Scott’s “The
Language of Reconciliation: Evolving Terminology and the Ethics of
Teaching,” which also serves as an introduction. Scott maps out a
conceptual framework of the terminology of peace building and gives
some concrete examples of how to introduce these in the classroom. She
also shows the limitations of definitions and theory and argues for the
constant evolution of the language of reconciliation as an ethical practice
of reading, thinking, and teaching. Like Scott’s essay, those that follow in
the first section outline some of the larger theoretical conundrums
presented by the study and teaching of reconciliation. Joy Arbor also
examines the limits of the language of reconciliation, as well as those of
teaching post-conflict reconciliation and moral engagement in the
classroom. Arbor argues for an approach to teaching literature rooted in an
interventionist praxis, a set of pedagogical principles informed by the
psychological study of genocide and reconciliation. Sarah Gendron’s essay
on Elie Wiesel’s Night and André Schwartz-Bart’s The Last of the Just
also draws from the psychological study of genocide, noting the
relationship between perceived Holocaust memory “norms” and two very
different yet equally paradigmatic Holocaust narratives. In what ways, she
asks, do conflicting memories promote or problematize reconciliation?
Emil B. Towner suggests that, perhaps, reconciliation begins less with acts
of memory but rather with acts of apology. Focusing on post-genocide
Rwanda, Towner’s essay offers an overview of the practice of apology,
how apologies are discussed in the current literature on Rwanda, and how,
ultimately, instructors can incorporate these issues in the classroom.
The second section of Thinking and Practicing is entitled “Reading”
and offers critical analyses of texts from diverse places and time periods.
Though the lens of the Australian novel Landscape of Farewell by Alex
Miller, Sheila Collingwood-Whittick outlines the pitfalls of reconciliation
discourse, noting the limits of creative literature as a means of achieving
reconciliation. While some Australians perceive a 2008 government
apology to Aboriginal Australians as marking a form of closure, others see
it as merely the first step in a longer process. Anne Goarzin senses this
xiv
Preface
“longer process” in the complex expressions of violence in Irish poetry. In
the “critical distance” that poetry can produce, Goarzin suggests that
poetry subtly dodges the expected competing narratives of radical
repression and mythified sacrifice to produce instead a “redressing”
discourse. In this sense, Irish poetry of conflict moves towards healing and
reconciliation and allows for new readings of history that reach beyond
arbitrary myths of the nation and its heroes. For her part, Modhumita Roy
shows how South African writer Gillian Slovo’s memoir, Every Secret
Thing, operates within the paradigm endorsed by the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that revealing is healing. At the same
time, however, Roy’s discussion of the interplay of individual and
collective history shows how Every Secret Thing modulates and
interrogates the TRC’s assumption of a truth that can be uncovered. Jean
Wilson offers a transition to the last section of this volume, a scholarly
reading of the “spectacular reconciliation” of Achilles and Priam at the
end of the Iliad and a comparison of Homer’s use of such spectacle with
similarly astonishing scenes in works by the nineteenth-century German
writer Heinrich von Kleist. The power of such scenes to disturb and
provoke becomes, ultimately, a pedagogical invitation to students to
engage in their own literary “peace research.”
The essays in the final section, “Practice,” provide some practical
methods for teaching the literature of reconciliation. The strategies,
questions, and exercises which these authors provide for approaching
specific texts, as well as discussions of their own experiences in teaching,
may serve as models for teachers in similar and other fields of literary
studies. Elena M. DeCosta examines the literary rehabilitation of the
memory of Pinochet’s dictatorship by three Chilean writers, Ariel
Dorfman, Isabel Allende, and Marjorie Agos’n, as well as the impact of
these writings on the North American student of literature. DeCosta
describes strategies that enable instructor and student to collaborate in
applying the open-ended questions and narrative strategies posed by these
texts to new realities not contained in the literary pieces. In what becomes
a classroom investigation of reconciliation after the Rwandan genocide,
Catherine T. Nerney first examines with her students the general uses of
narrative for the study of forgiveness and reconciliation. She invites
students to enter narrative as characters who are themselves questioned
and challenged by the events recounted in stories. Nerney then turns to
classroom recounting of stories of spectacular reconciliation that she
herself heard while visiting Rwanda. In the end, her course becomes a
study of human relationships, namely, our capacity to hurt and to heal, to
forgive and be forgiven. A monument to the abolition of the Atlantic slave
Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation
xv
trade in Amsterdam serves as a touchstone for Jack Shuler’s exploration of
how students can be made witnesses to historical traumas in an effort to
address present-day injustices. Shuler describes how, during a course that
“read” the monument in Amsterdam, one of his students had an encounter
that brought the complicated truths of America’s slaving past to the
surface in a very personal way when she was threatened with a lawsuit
because of an oral history she recorded. Finally, Leo W. Riegert Jr.
examines contemporary German writer Uwe Timm’s semiautobiographical text, In My Brother’s Shadow, which investigates
Timm’s family’s involvement in the crimes of the Third Reich. Timm’s
text alternates between two modes of representation, one reconciliatory,
one retributive. In so doing, Riegert argues, it becomes an example for the
student/reader of how to read the Holocaust in a way that both remembers
the past and serves to create a better present and future. Finally, Riegert
describes how the use of service-learning in conjunction with courses on
the Holocaust mimics the process of dialogue that Timm’s text embodies
and models.
Ultimately, the essays in this volume chart a course from theory to
practice and offer new perspectives on the very human endeavor of
storytelling as a way of addressing—and, at least in part, overcoming—
human-rights injustices. In their focus on pedagogical strategies and
frameworks, the contributions gathered here also demonstrate that, as postsecondary educators, our engagement with students can indeed produce
practices of reconciliation that start in the classroom and move beyond it.
Works Cited
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla, and Chris N. Van der Merwe, eds. Memory,
Narrative, and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys
of the Past. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press,
2009. Print.
Goldberg, Elizabeth Swanson. Beyond Terror: Gender, Narrative, Human
Rights. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2007. Print.
Leach, Fiona, and Máiréad Dunne. Education, Conflict and
Reconciliation. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2007. Print.
Minow, Martha. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History
after Genocide and Mass Violence. Boston: Beacon, 1999. Print.
McGonegal, Julie. Imagining Justice: The Politics of Postcolonial
Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Durham/UK: Acumen, 2009. Print.
Schaffer, Kay, and Sidonie Smith. Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The
Ethics of Recognition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Print.
xvi
Preface
Scott, Jill. A Poetics of Forgiveness: Cultural Responses to Loss and
Wrongdoing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print.
Slaughter, Joseph. Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form,
and International Law. New York: Fordham UP, 2007. Print.
Acknowledgements
The editors wish to thank all those who made this volume possible,
including our colleagues at Kenyon College, Denison University, and
Queen’s University (Kingston). We are grateful for the intellectual
generosity and congenial collaboration of our fabulous contributors, for
the patience and dedication of our copyeditor, Ann Glaviano, and for the
prompt and helpful support from the editors at Cambridge Scholars Press.
PART I:
THEORY
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION:
THE LANGUAGE OF RECONCILIATION;
EVOLVING TERMINOLOGY
AND THE ETHICS OF TEACHING
JILL SCOTT
In recent years, college and university curricula have begun to reflect
the growing public interest in processes of reconciliation and transitional
justice. Since the 1980s, there have been concerted efforts to acknowledge
and think through the complex cultural discourses around the Holocaust
and its aftermath, but the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution
of South African apartheid in the mid-nineties ignited widespread interest in
processes of reconciliation. In addition to specific programs, such as
Trauma Studies, Holocaust Studies, and Conflict Resolution and Peace
Studies, a great number of disciplines—from political science and
sociology to philosophy and literary studies—have begun to offer courses
on these topics. This collective inquiry has led to fruitful debate and
reflection, both inside and outside academic institutions.
But questions of terminology and appropriate theoretical frames
present a challenge to the study of peace building in literature and culture.
Teachers quickly come up against a thorny conundrum: we want to help
our students develop a vocabulary around conflict and resolution, so that
they can think, speak, and write in articulate ways about interpersonal and
political conflicts. Yet we are soon confronted with the reality that,
whether we are talking about real-world events or narrative accounts, the
nature of conflict and the business of reconciliation are complicated and
messy and do not fit easily into tidy definitions or paradigms.
In this essay, I will map out some of the terminology relevant to
reconciliation and peace building. I do not provide an exhaustive
discussion of these concepts, since the splitting of hairs can get in the way
of making useful distinctions.1 Rather I tease out the relationships between
Introduction
3
terms, draw out commonalities and differences, and provide some tips on
introducing conceptual frameworks in ways that support student learning.
Next, I spend a bit of time on examples where terminology really matters
and talk about how to address the discursive construction of reconciliation.
But I also show the limitations of definitions and theory—after all, it’s
important not to clutter up the classroom with big words. Lastly, I argue
for the constant evolution of the language of reconciliation as an ethical
practice of reading, thinking, and teaching.
Before I go further, I want to say a few words about my own approach
to teaching. At the end of the day, my work is less about teaching and
more about learning. We often talk about dissolving the teacher/student
dichotomy and creating learner-centered environments. But for me, it’s all
about learning to learn. Learning to learn is the most important endeavor
in higher education, whether for teachers or students. I am passionate
about reconciliation and conflict resolution, but I am more passionate
about engaging with students in an ongoing learning opportunity for all of
us. The material is important, but I see it as a platform for learning. I also
put emphasis on an open learning system, where students learn to be
tolerant of difference, to live with ambiguity, and to develop strategies for
acknowledging and resolving the conflicts that inevitably arise when we
engage passionately with any topic. The conflict-resolution classroom can
be a place where product meets process head-on, and where learning
becomes a transformational experience.
I take an outcomes-oriented approach to the learning endeavor and so
emphasize the development of transferable skills, including critical
reading, analysis, interpretation, argumentation, and oral and written
expression, but also foster a sense of social responsibility and ethical
practices within the classroom and beyond. I encourage students to take
risks and to understand that real learning involves stretching beyond our
comfort zone, both in terms of how we engage and what we attempt. This
also goes for myself as instructor—I consciously choose to teach material
that is new to me and about which I do not yet have fully formulated ideas.
As teachers, it is tempting to hide behind our knowledge and to use it as a
shield—especially terminology—but we also know that real learning
happens when we step out from behind the lectern and take risks of our
own. Where curiosity meets creativity and cooperation, the results often
surpass expectations for all learners, whether teachers or students.
4
Chapter One
Terminology
How and what terminology to introduce is a key aspect of learning
about reconciliation. In Reconciliation(s): Transitional Justice in Postconflict
Societies, Joanna Quinn makes developing a vocabulary around reconciliation
and conflict resolution one of the central goals of the edited volume. She
writes that the contributors “all attempt to come to terms with the manyheaded beast that is reconciliation” (12). In Imagining Justice: The Politics
of Postcolonial Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Julie McGonegal also
attaches importance to definitions, but she is aware of the limitations of
imposed categories:
Let me note that although my readings attend carefully to the semantic
refinements and differences between forgiveness and reconciliation, and an
array of related terms such as apology, confession, and reparation, I have
found it impossible to treat these concepts as self-contained, isolated, or
discrete units of meaning. (18-19)
McGonegal goes on to say that reconciliation and forgiveness are
“fundamentally entangled” and that the “globalization and secularization
of Judeo-Christian traditions” requires that they be analyzed together with
atonement, repentance, expiation, salvation, and transformation (19). My
own experience of writing about forgiveness in a literary context confirms
this approach. In A Poetics of Forgiveness, I write: “There is definitely a
place for establishing clear definitions for the vocabulary of resolution, but
literature, like life, is often a messy business, and the terms of reference
are like moving targets” (3).
Even if we acknowledge the limitations of terminology, we do need a
working vocabulary as a place to start. Let’s begin then with
reconciliation. Below are a few examples of definitions.
The action of restoring estranged people or parties to friendship; the action
or an act of bringing a thing or things to agreement, concord, or harmony.
(Oxford English Dictionary)
Building or rebuilding relationships today that are not haunted by the
conflicts and hatreds of yesterday. (Priscilla Hayner, qtd. in Quinn 4)
Building relationships of trust and cohesion. (Quinn 5)
Establishing new conditions of interaction—conditions centered on the
ideals of negotiation, collaboration, and reciprocity. (McGonegal 33)
Introduction
5
A consensual process in which the “work” of reconciling is not assumed
only, or even primarily, by those who have been wronged. (McGonegal 33)
Setting aside of past animosities, and the possibility of former enemies
working together in the future. (Hamber and Kelly 287)
Developing a mutual conciliatory accommodation between antagonistic or
formerly antagonistic persons or groups. (Priscilla Hayner, qtd. in Hamber
and Kelly 287)
A preparedness of people to anticipate a shared future. (Andrew Rigby,
qtd. in Hamber and Kelly 287)
The act of two people coming together following separation. (Robert
Enright, qtd. in Hamber and Kelly 289)
While there is quite a bit of variation, certain themes do emerge, such as
rebuilding relations, establishing trust, and developing a shared future.
Fundamentally, reconciliation is future-oriented. This is not to say that the
past is not important, but rather that reconciliation is first and foremost
about moving forward and that it involves the participation and
cooperation of at least two parties. Taking into consideration many
perspectives, Hamber and Kelly develop a comprehensive, multi-faceted
definition of reconciliation, which involves several stages:
1. Developing a shared vision of an interdependent and fair society;
2. Acknowledging and dealing with the past;
3. Building positive relationships;
4. Significant cultural and attitudinal change;
5. Substantial social, economic, and political change. (291-292)
Hamber and Kelly’s model refers to restoring social relations in postconflict situations. However, it can be adapted to address interpersonal
conflict. Reconciliation may also involve other elements, such as
rehumanizing the “other”; expressions of remorse; providing explanations
and establishing the context of a conflict or wrongdoing; finding ways to
heal old wounds; respecting mutual difference; and recognizing mutual
dependence (296).
Reconciliation is often a pragmatic response to conflict, a compromise
that is of mutual benefit to all parties involved. It is also useful to conceive
of reconciliation as a continuum, which spans various stages: agreeing to
cease aggression (political or interpersonal); coexisting with little
6
Chapter One
interaction; working together on mutual projects; building trust and
friendship; embracing a shared vision for a better future.
Where reconciliation is primarily future oriented, forgiveness is a
response to past actions, which nonetheless impact on the future. Below
are some common definitions of forgiveness:
To give up resentment; to pardon an offence . . . or an offender; to make
excuse or apology for [something]. (Oxford English Dictionary)
To forswear resentment, anger, or other reactions to their having done
something that justifies such responses. (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy)
Letting go of resentment for moral reasons, as well as of revenge, without
forgetting the wrong that was done, and even in some cases (re)accepting
the offender as a friend. (Griswold 40)
The resolute overcoming of the anger and hatred that are naturally directed
towards a person who has done one an unjustified and non-excused moral
injury. (Jeffrie Murphy, qtd. in Sarat and Hussain 4)
An event, a gratuitous gift, and a personal relation with the other.
(Vladimir Jankélévitch, qtd. in Sanders 89)
Pure forgiveness forgives only the unforgivable. (Derrida 32)
Forgiveness is a matter of working over, amending, and overcoming
attitudes, and it is a process, not an event. (Govier 43)
Forgiveness is at least as complex as reconciliation. There is general
agreement that forgiveness involves letting go of resentment, but there are
those who attach a great number of conditions and those who feel it must
be given as a free gift. Charles Griswold develops a comprehensive
conditional model of forgiveness, which requires that the offender (1)
acknowledge responsibility for the wrong; (2) repudiate her deeds; (3)
express regret; (4) commit to becoming the sort of person who does not
inflict injury; (5) demonstrate that she understands the damage caused; and
(6) give some sort of narrative account for how she came to do wrong. In
other words, Griswold’s version of forgiveness is intimately linked to
apology and atonement (49-51).
On the opposite extreme, Jacques Derrida maintains that forgiveness
must not have any conditions attached, that it must be a free gift (44).
Conditions, exchange, or negotiation contaminate forgiveness with
politics, says Derrida, and transform it into reconciliation. Time is also a
consideration—some see forgiveness as a promise and a one-time decision
Introduction
7
regarding a single wrongdoing in the past, while others see forgiveness as
a process with many steps or stages. As with reconciliation, forgiveness
too can be seen as a continuum from the awareness of resentment to the
desire to be free of this resentment to complete acceptance of the
individual. In a religious context, forgiveness is granted by God, a priest,
or a pastor, and it may involve atonement, redemption, and salvation.
Where reconciliation requires the involvement of two parties, forgiveness
can be unilateral, whereby the victim forgives the wrongdoer, or bilateral,
whereby the wrongdoer makes amends and the victim forgives. Unlike
reconciliation, however, it is not usual to have a third party mediate
forgiveness. Also, as I indicate above, where reconciliation is a futureoriented process, forgiveness addresses wrongdoings of the past (although
it paves the way for a better future).
The Relationship of Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Forgiveness and reconciliation represent two central categories of
conflict resolution, but there is little agreement about which ought to come
first or whether they need both be involved. For example, let’s say a
woman forgives the man who stole her purse, but there is no reconciliation
because she has no desire for a friendship or partnership in the future.
Conversely, a man who learned about his wife’s extramarital affair decides
to reconcile for the sake of their children, but he is not ready to forgive
her. Forgiveness and reconciliation may go hand in hand, but it is not
always the case. Furthermore, there is no definite sequence—forgiveness
may precede reconciliation or reconciliation may lead to forgiveness.
Finally, where reconciliation is often invoked in political and social
contexts as a result of prolonged conflict (groups), forgiveness is often
associated with private and interpersonal matters as a response to a
specific wrongdoing (individuals).
While there is general agreement that reconciliation and forgiveness
are positive responses to conflict, neither will be successful if there is any
hint of coercion. Such processes require that active conflict have ceased,
and it is wise to wait until tempers have cooled. Moreover, resolution can
be hindered by any stated expectation of reconciliation or forgiveness.
While mediation can be very effective to resolve specific misunderstandings,
reconciliation is at its best when it unfolds as an organic process that takes
many forms—it may for example arise without ever speaking about the
particular conflict in question. In fact, some experts in the field of conflict
resolution suggest that it is unwise to bring parties together with the aim of
8
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forgiveness or reconciliation and that using these words may put too much
pressure on parties involved (Peterson Armour and Umbreit 493).
One very effective way of coming to a mutually beneficial resolution is
to recognize, share, and celebrate common values. An example of this was
the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, which ended up building positive
relations between English Canada and Quebec. For decades, there has
been a strong separatist movement in Quebec, but when the Canadian
men’s hockey team was involved in a gold-medal match against the
United States, Québécois and English Canadians found themselves
cheering for the same side, united by their shared passion for ice hockey.
In another scenario, in the summer of 2010 Pakistan experienced such
intense flooding that it was declared a natural disaster. Sandwiched
between Afghanistan and India—with tensions on either side—Pakistan
nonetheless received aid from both countries. People from all sides
worked together to build dikes, ensure access to emergency medical
services, and provide famine relief. The shared value of humanity and
human lives can lead to surprising resolutions. That said, it is best not to
wait for a crisis to address conflict. Where tension is rising in a family, for
example, planning a fun activity—a trip or a special outing—may be an
important supplement to psychotherapy. Where there is abuse, violence, or
serious dysfunction, however, professional intervention is indispensable.
When it comes to processes of conflict resolution, there are differing
views on the issue of process and sequence. For example, Veerle
Opgenhaffen and Mark Freeman see reconciliation as the overarching
theme, with repentance, acknowledgement, and forgiveness as critical
components thereof (Quinn 9). Quinn sees “social healing” as the core
process, and includes acknowledgement, forgiveness, social trust,
democracy, and reconciliation as key elements. Quinn goes on to say that
reconciliation might be more appropriately called “social cohesion” (10).
For his part, Stephanus du Toit points to tensions between political
discourses of human rights and more holistic versions of reconciliation
(Quinn 11). Brandon Hamber and Gráinn Kelly see reconciliation as the
key word, which includes elements of shared vision, acknowledgement,
the building of relationships, and cultural, attitudinal, social, economic,
and political transformation (Quinn 11). Linda Radzik, on the other hand,
posits atonement at the center of restorative measures with reconciliation
as a related concept (80).
Introduction
9
The Importance of Context
It is one thing to speak in abstract terms about concepts and
definitions, but students need to be made aware of the powerful factor of
context. What are the specificities of time, place, and person that color our
use of these terms? What are some potential areas of misunderstanding? In
this section, I discuss factors that influence the development of conflict
and processes of resolution.
Cultural Difference: First-World models of human rights are often
unwittingly imposed upon very different geographical and cultural sites of
conflict. In order to get at the rich dialogue of resolution that has
developed over the last decades, teachers should attempt to draw upon
diverse examples of regional conflict—such as the Balkans, Rwanda,
Ireland, and Israel/Palestine. Diversity within regions is another
complicating factor. For example, discussions of apartheid and postapartheid South Africa have often been dominated by the racial divide
between whites and blacks. Yet within the so-called white population the
division between Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaners and those of British
descent who speak English is vast, and the cultural and linguistic diversity
among black South Africans is staggering, with eleven official languages
(not including regional dialects) and many more ethnic groups. Add to
this the so-called Coloured and Indian minorities as well as the
heterogeneous mix of world religions and Indigenous spiritual traditions,
and the interstices of race, ethnicity, religion, and language are
unimaginably complex.
But we do not have to leave our own continent to encounter vast
differences in experience and worldview. We need look no further than the
oppression and abuse of American Indian and First Nation peoples,
African Americans, or Japanese Americans and Canadian Americans
during World War Two. It is not realistic to develop specific expertise in
every region and culture that appear on a curriculum. However, it is
essential to understand the limits of our knowledge, admit that we are
likely to unconsciously make assumptions about peoples and places, and
be prepared to examine, question, and even set aside some of our deeply
held values and beliefs when engaging with cultures and contexts other
than our own.
Given the challenge of addressing cultural difference and diversity, it is
important to seek out secondary sources by scholars with local knowledge
and experience and/or to respectfully engage directly with local
communities (see Jack Shuler’s essay in Chapter Eleven). Attending to
questions of cultural difference involves instructors and students together
10
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examining and critiquing our own assumptions and worldviews; the
classroom can be transformed into a space for open and honest
investigation of what we really care about and why. Once we become
more conscious of our own core values and beliefs, then we are better able
to question our assumptions about others.
Historical period and changing worldviews: Discourses of conflict
resolution have tended to privilege contemporary examples—roughly
1990 to the present—for the simple reason that there has been a concerted
effort in recent decades to approach political conflict with the view that
reconciliation is a desired outcome. But for earlier times, whether we are
talking about Homer’s Iliad, Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, or
Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, it is important to
consider the vast differences in worldviews, and the very real possibility
that reconciliation is not at all a desired outcome. For example, Homer’s
Achilles making peace would mean losing face. He must avenge the death
of Patrocles or he will forfeit his honor. Achilles can acknowledge Priam’s
pain, but to properly reconcile would be a sign of weakness according to
the dominant social codes (see Jean Wilson’s essay in Chapter Eight).
Even as recently as the Vietnam War, peace talks were not the norm. The
war ended with a ceasefire and then a settlement was negotiated.
Reconciliation would have meant the admission that the war had been
unjust or somehow avoidable. That said, just because ancient and even
relatively recent worldviews do not actively support a conciliatory model
does not mean that it is not fruitful to take up these examples with
students. The discord between worldviews is a valuable opportunity to
consider our own assumptions about what is right and wrong and why we
cling to these oppositional categories.
Religious Beliefs and Practices: When it comes to religious values, it
behooves teachers to tread lightly. It is not that we ought not to raise
religion as a category of difference; rather, religion has become such a hotbutton topic in public education that debates that consider religious values
risk high-jacking the opportunities to truly engage with students. However,
religion does matter a great deal. For example, in the case of South Africa,
much of the scholarship on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(TRC) privileges a secular human-rights perspective and is silent when it
comes to the role of the Church of England in orchestrating the end of
apartheid and paving the way for a public conversation about forgiveness.2
I will say more about this later, but the interstices of Christianity and
Indigenous spirituality present a complex landscape of values, which
played a decisive role in the outcomes of the TRC and so requires
thoughtful consideration.
Introduction
11
Gender and Sexuality: The role of gender in processes of conflict
resolution has received less sustained attention than questions of culture
and ethnicity. Wanda Malcolm, Nancy DeCourville, and Kathryn Belicki
write in their edited volume, Women’s Reflections on the Complexities of
Forgiveness (2008), that, traditionally speaking, forgiveness has been
considered the work of women. There is a common perception that women
and children make up the majority of victims of violence and sexual abuse,
and that the majority of perpetrators are men. While there is far more
female/female and female/male violence than stereotypes project, women
do often find themselves in the role of the forgiver or at least spearheading
discussions of peace and reconciliation within families and societies. In the
South African TRC, women played prominent roles as forgiver/reconcilers.
In Bearing Witness: Women and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa, Fiona Ross argues that women were often relegated to the
role of victim of sexual abuse and excluded from the larger discussions of
politics and nation. Regardless of the circumstances of conflict, it is
important to keep in mind the dynamic of gender and power and to
confront the socially constructed nature of both categories.
Texts for Combining Terminology and Context
I turn now to some examples of terminology in context, including the
case of South Africa’s TRC, teaching the Holocaust through literature, and
terminology as it relates to matters of curriculum—what we study, what
we don’t, and why, as well as the ways terminology can be integrated into
dynamic inquiry-oriented classroom activities.
In the case of the South African TRC, terminology couldn’t be more
important. The word “reconciliation” is in the title of the commission and
so one might think that this is the major focus and desired outcome of the
process. In the early 1990s, a plan for a peaceful transfer of political power
was being negotiated between the apartheid government’s National Party,
under the leadership of F. W. de Klerk, and the African National Council,
led by Nelson Mandela, who was, after twenty-seven years in prison,
released on 11 February 1990. But this was also a time of extreme
violence, which escalated to catastrophic proportions. There was widespread
fear—justifiable fear—that a bloody civil war was unavoidable. Many
critics lamented that the TRC was a political compromise, that it was a
whitewashing of ideals, when ideology caved in to the demands of
Western notions of liberal democracy, industrial capitalism, and
globalization (see Grunebaum-Ralph and Jolly). Still others would argue
that it allowed South Africa a glimmer of hope that Nelson Mandela’s
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Chapter One
dream of an integrated, diverse, and inclusive Rainbow Nation was
somehow possible (see Ignatieff and Gobodo-Madikizela, “Remorse”).
The mandate of the TRC was to allow perpetrators to come forward
and receive amnesty—release from legal consequences for criminal
wrongdoing—in exchange for a full confession of their involvement in
“gross human rights violations” committed during the “political struggle
against apartheid.” The Commission, which began its proceedings in 1994
and published a final report in 1998, had legal authority to pass judgment
on perpetrators—and not all applicants received amnesty. In this way, the
Commission’s role was “quasi-juridical.” But in other ways, it was a
civilian process; there were no lawyers, no judges, and it was presided
over by Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop in the Church of England in South
Africa and an outspoken proponent of forgiveness. In his memoir, No
Future without Forgiveness, Tutu is adamant that the TRC exposed the
horrors of the crimes against humanity; that it avoided state-mandated
retribution, which would have led to endless criminal trials and the
incarceration of countless numbers of the country’s most educated and
capable leaders; and that it very likely averted a civil war that would have
ripped South Africa to shreds—a country already crippled by political
violence. But Tutu also demonstrates that bringing together victims and
perpetrators elicited a kind of reciprocal humanity in all parties and
fostered courageous acts of confession and forgiveness.
Even this brief introduction to the TRC reveals the complex network of
discourses—legal, political, and religious—and serves as a good example
of an instance where words both matter and don’t matter. The three key
concepts are reconciliation—political negotiations and restoring relations
of trust and understanding; amnesty—release from legal consequences of
criminal wrongdoing (but not pardon);3 and forgiveness—moving beyond
hatred and anger and working to recognize and embrace the humanity of
the other/wrongdoer. A fourth and equally important term here, is ubuntu,
the African ethic and practice of reciprocal humanity: seeing my humanity
through the humanity of the other and recognizing that we are
interconnected and mutually dependent. While ubuntu has no official role
in the TRC, the integration of this notion within the discourse and actions
of the commission adds a crucial component of cultural specificity and
draws on the rich resources of Indigenous traditions of Africa.
It is important to distinguish between these categories—reconciliation,
amnesty, forgiveness, and ubuntu—but it is equally vital to recognize that
they are entangled in necessarily complicated ways and that the results of
the TRC are not immediately measurable. For example, the TRC dealt
exclusively with perpetrators and victims of politically motivated crimes
Introduction
13
committed during the struggle against apartheid between the years of 1960
and 1994. A very small percentage of South Africans was included in this
group. And yet, all citizens were encouraged to follow the proceedings of
the TRC, either by attending public hearings in person or through the
extensive media coverage. Individuals on all sides were affected and the
resulting social impact was significant.
As an international observer, Michael Ignatieff remarked that the TRC
did not work miracles, but that it “reduced the number of lies in
circulation” (qtd. in Nolan 146), and that all those who participated and
many who followed through media coverage would have to admit that
“something happened” (Ignatieff 20). This nebulous something is the
palpable yet unnameable mystery of conflict resolution. This example
illustrates that words and definitions are simultaneously important and not
important at all. I have found the example of the TRC to be extremely
useful for illustrating broad concepts of terminology to students because
the overlap of spheres is at once very overt, and yet we can clearly see the
pitfalls that come from making assumptions about categories of conflict
and resolution.
My next example comes from teaching Simon Wiesenthal’s The
Sunflower, a Holocaust narrative, in which a dying SS officer seeks out a
young Jewish prisoner, confesses his participation in heinous genocidal
crimes, and begs forgiveness. This narrative offers multiple opportunities
to engage with questions of terminology and frames of reference for
conflict and resolution. One of the most significant hurdles in this case is
the power differential between the two parties: the SS officer/perpetrator
asks for forgiveness from the Jewish prisoner/victim. In such circumstances,
the balance of power—at least rhetorical power—normally shifts to the
victim, who has the authority to deny the request. But even though he lies
dying in his bed, the soldier still has the potential to inflict suffering on the
Jewish prisoner. A further complication arises from the fact that the
conflict is ongoing. The Jew is still imprisoned within a concentration
camp and his life, like the lives of millions of Jews imprisoned elsewhere,
is in constant jeopardy. Students tend to agree that true forgiveness
requires that the conflict have ceased and the parties be on somewhat equal
footing.
The next question that arises regards the authority to grant forgiveness.
In a religious context, forgiveness is granted by God or a religious leader;
in an interpersonal situation, the right to forgive rests with the victim. But
the victims of the SS officer’s crimes are dead; the young man is merely a
symbolic representative—a synecdoche—for a whole disadvantaged
group. Students often conclude that one Jewish member cannot forgive on
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Chapter One
behalf of a whole people. The class also discusses the question of
conditional forgiveness—whether religious or interpersonal—involving
various means of making amends: confession, apology, expressions of
remorse, material and moral compensation, as well as a commitment to
reform or even a demonstration of new behavior. Apart from the
immediate verbal admission of guilt, the SS officer has no means to atone
for his crimes. Students often find that because the normal conditions of
forgiveness cannot be met, any forgiveness granted would be compromised
or partial.
Finally, we consider what forgiveness means in this narrative context:
Is this religious forgiveness, and if so, which theological tradition—
Christian (Catholic or other denomination) or Jewish—is invoked? How
does historical period influence the notion of forgiveness—would a person
feel more or less inclined to forgive sixty years ago? There are many
features that make this narrative useful for a learning exercise: it is a
relatively short text; the narrative contains a self-reflection on the part of
the young Jewish man with his fellow prisoners; and the second part of the
text collects very brief responses by dozens of respected thinkers,
including survivors, religious leaders, and other prominent intellectuals
from many different backgrounds and cultures, including the Dalai Lama
and Bishop Desmond Tutu. Analysis of a few of these short responses and
reflections provides an opportunity to think through questions of
intercultural difference regarding forgiveness and reconciliation. I have
also had success in probing these questions further by using role-play and
directed debate followed by summary discussions. In this way, the
students and I are able to expand and complicate terminology; students are
confronted with the notion of emerging vocabulary, and they learn to
create and revise definitions for themselves.
These are but two examples of the ways in which I have introduced
and problematized questions of terminology. Curricular frameworks are
related to the terms we use because the material we choose informs the
focus of our learning. I teach in a German and International Studies
context, and so it is natural to treat the example of the Holocaust,
contrasting mostly German-language and Anglo-American creative and
critical responses. Another now-common example in reconciliation studies
is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and this too is
appropriate, given that it marks a political and historical watershed in
terms of global responses to gross human-rights violations and the
aftermath of prolonged violent conflict and serves as a model for
subsequent truth commissions. I would, however, caution against focusing
solely on conflict that is far removed in both time and space, because we